The 5 years I spent conducting joint research with Prof. Nkongmeneck in the Gribe village of Cameroon, has come to be the treasure of my life as a researcher.Wearing boots and dressed in camouflage gear even know I can see his silhouette trudging through the forest in my mind’s eye. I felt that there was no other researcher who continued to embody the spirit of a true field worker as much as Prof. Nkongmeneck. For his students as well as the population of Gribe and even for an educator such as myself, hearing Prof. Nkongmeneck divulge his bountiful knowledge of the forest was a wondrous spectacle to observe. I believe the passion and ambition exuded by Prof. Nkongmeneck will continue to live on in the hearts of the students he raised and with the inhabitants of the forests as well.

Prof. Nkongmenceck was admitted into the Fellowship of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences in the College of Biological Sciences in 2006 in recognition for distinguished work in botany. The work touched on biological diversity and its uses, particularly in the areas of education and medicinal plants of Cameroon.

His activities within the Academy included service on ad hoc committees for evaluation of applications for fellowship of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences and some African Science Academies. His departure is therefore a loss of expertise not only for the Cameroon Academy of Sciences but a loss to the African scientific community.

The Academy expresses its condolences to the Nkongmeneck family and prays the Almighty God to grant him perfect peace in eternity.

Prof, I have wanted to visit you at your new Museum with experimental forest. When you have identified my specimens at MEM, you introduced me to your museum and I was impressed by your passion both in biodiversity science and in participatry approach for conservation. I reported about your museum in a volume of small newsletter for the conservation of Kyoto University Botanic garden. Hope you will sleep in peace.

Words cannot express my sorrow to lose such a dear friend and esteemed colleague. We had a lifetime of adventures in botany, from Cameroon to Florida, and exchanges of family and support as well as plants and data. Bernard was a special human being, and the world of biodiversity has lost a champion. Rest in peace, most special friend.

Father, brother, cousin. You've been the most intellectual figure of our familly, the Kemde's familly. Now that your gone forever, nothing can't stop us crying but we won't cry forever because GOD is good all the time, only him knows why he decided to take you away from us this soon. Rest in peace daddy. Love you forever!!!!!!!!

OH, what a loss!!! I remember my days of volunteering at the MEM. How much knowledge and skills I acquired from you. You were such an inspiration to young researchers like myself. A mentor and good counsel, soft spoken with words of wisdom. You sure have left a deep gap but your work and legacy will live on. RIP Prof

What a loss! A hard working dedicated ecologist so passionate of his profession...nature conservation. My memories take me way back in 1997 during our first encounter in the deep dense southeast forests of Cameroon where we spent several months together doing pioneer wildlife and botanical inventories. He was a great inspiration for young biologists like us then. He has left a deep gap that inarguably will be difficult to fill. Prof Rest in Perfect Peace.